AIDS And HIV: Chicago By The Numbers

Story by Erica Demarest, courtesy of the Windy City Times:

Between 1990 and 2010, the city of Chicago saw a 39 percent decrease in newly reported AIDS diagnoses, with the number of new annual cases dropping from 1,024 to 621.

The community areas in which newly diagnosed AIDS patients live have shifted fairly dramatically over the past two decades. In 1990, most new diagnoses were reported on the North Side, with almost every neighborhood north of the Loop experiencing high counts.

By 2010, however, these numbers had thinned significantly with one exception: the far North Side lakefront neighborhoods.

"Edgewater, Uptown and Rogers Park have always been epicenters of the epidemic," said John Peller, vice president of policy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "It's hard to explain. I think that's where many [ gay ] people choose to live for a variety of reasons." Gay people have consistently been one of the largest groups to contract AIDS, Peller explains.

As rates on the North Side have diminished--in some cases by as much as 88 percent--rates on the South and West Sides have remained stagnant or grown.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[dbrett480]

09:22 PM on 11/10/2011

The growth in AIDS rates in those neighborhoods show that it isn't necessarily the gay population that is acquiring the disease; but those that are IV drug users.

[rforeverfree]

06:58 AM on 11/10/2011

Gee that's awful. Is AIDS preventable or what?

[speedydan79]

03:53 AM on 11/10/2011

I don't think Peller's explanation is adequate. Though there may be a significant gay population in these far North neighborhoods, there is also a significant population of drug users and mentally ill in the many half-way houses which dot the area. I believe that this population more than the gays who happen to reside here accounts for the increased incidence of Aids in the area.

[antonymous]

10:00 PM on 11/09/2011

I was going to comment that I thought the West Side, specifically Austin, had the highest rates of AIDS. But I decided to actually read the story before putting my foot in my mouth. Sure enough:

[As rates on the North Side have diminished—in some cases by as much as 88 percent—rates on the South and West Sides have remained stagnant or grown.

The West Side's North Lawndale neighborhood saw a 22 percent increase in AIDS diagnoses rates, while South Side neighborhoods like Great Grand Crossing and South Chicago have seen increases as high as 30-50 percent. In West Englewood, the diagnosis rate had more than doubled by 2010.

"There are areas on the South and West Side where there's a really strong tie to poverty," Peller said. " [ HIV ] is in a lot of ways a symptom of a problem. The problem is poverty, lack of economic opportunity, high incarceration rates, joblessness, schools that aren't meeting the needs of the students … . Throw racism and homophobia in there, and it's really a perfect storm in a lot of ways."]

So really it's not a problem of lazy, biased reporting so much as a problem of lazy, biased editing for the aggregation.

[StormCarRain]

05:23 AM on 11/10/2011

Racism? Don't remember reading about a certain race. Homophobia? Statistics don't lie. Gays have a 50 percent chance of dying because of their lifestyle choices.